On non-belief and the existence of God

[FallentoReason]

FallenToReason

Hmm.. would this be equivalent to, say, telling your kid about cleaning his room? So e.g. 'If I had not spoken to my kid, he would not have a messy room; but now he has no excuse for the mess in his room'.
If that's accurate, then I'd have to disagree about ignorance being an excuse. How was your kid supposed to know the very first time you had an expectation of him if you had never spoken to him about it? Ergo the non-belief problem.

I was arguing the opposite of what you think I was arguing; I was suggesting that Jesus does allow for ignorance to be an excuse on occasion.

Oh okay, I see. I thought the opposite because 'excuse' has negative connotations.. but anyways..

Because he said the Jews only sinned once they had been spoken to. That doesn't mean that it's not good to care for what is in our possession (we don't argue that we should never tell our child to tidy their room just so they can stay out of trouble with us) but we do allow for some ignorance before they know. And so many describe the path of our lives, and the path of humanity, in similar language as the progression from childhood to adulthood. When children are very young we give them no instruction as they are not yet up to it. Then for a while we give them instruction and rules. Then when they are older the rules hopefully disappear as they learn the deeper reasons for why we should care for those things under our stewardship (a room, a house, our local community environment, the Earth, following the tidying room example).

And so, if we follow the child example, the child can make choices as they grow older. They can choose to reject any notion of stewardship and care. They can say to their parents 'no, I don't wish to be part of the community that cares for our environment', for example. They have been shown why it may be considered important, but they can make their own choices. But they reap the consequences (chopping down all the truffula trees, for example, to make thneeds). And so ignorance, which was once an excuse, has moved at some time on to wilful rejection.

Alright, well it seems that in a nutshell, what you're saying is that the responsibility of "acting correctly" slowly comes over time, as we grow older. But word it how you will - the problem still remains: it's not clear *at all* that such 'rules' (per se) are governing this universe; God needs to show himself.

Hang on, so are you essentially saying that knowledge of Jesus/God isn't required to gain access to heaven?

I'm saying an explicit knowledge is not required, but that there is an implicit knowledge of the values of goodness (of God) in the conscience. So we can take this back to child in their room, that the child deep down, at least as they get a little older, should realise it would be wrong to destroy what has been given to them. But as parents we still nurture them and explain things in more detail, and help set up order in their lives and bring them up to care for the environment around them (starting with their room). So we don't set conscience against nurture; that would be to impose a dichotomy that is not present in Christian faith.

Wouldn't implicit knowledge of God turn to explicit knowledge the moment nurturing begins? It would be like the child growing up without knowing his parents, yet somehow figures out what is expected of him. He hasn't met them, but the moment he does and nurturing begins, he explicitly knows what is expected of him. Thus, an atheist could come to act in accordance with God's will without ever knowing him, given that they all have values of goodness in their conscience. And thus, it seems like Jesus isn't required at all.

Interesting video, and I can see how the choices we make would have a big influence on where we end up eventually. But this doesn't detract from the point I'm making, which is that God revealing himself wouldn't negate our ability to then choose for ourselves if we wish to worship him or not.

Indeed, and I'm not saying it does negate our ability to make a choice. Indeed, on the contrary, it forces that choice which ultimately must be made (just as our fictional child must at some point choose to live in a house and community with order or choose to live somewhere outside of that order). The meeting with God precipitates a division of ways, a 'sifting' as the biblical texts refer to it, or what C.S.Lewis called the "Great Divorce" in his entertaining fictional story of heaven and hell.

Well, in conclusion, it seems like there's no reason for God *not* to show himself, as far as I can see. Point in favour of the problem of non-belief